Eriri's screen faded to black after her defeat, and Ichin held back his laughter while selecting the boss on his own screen. After the loading screen ended, he arrived in front of the fog gate leading to Father Gascoigne's boss arena.
As for equipment, the character was currently wearing a basic starting armor set. The available main-hand weapons were the three starting weapons: the Saw Cleaver, Cane, and Axe. The off-hand weapons were the starting Hunter Blunderbuss and Hunter Pistol.
The character was level 20, carrying ten Blood Vials and twenty bullets.
After checking his status, Ichin equipped the Saw Cleaver and pistol before interacting with the fog gate and walking inside.
Since this was a test build, there was no cutscene. The moment he entered, Father Gascoigne's health bar appeared and the boss immediately started walking toward him.
Rolling his neck slightly, Ichin entered focus mode as well. Instead of attacking right away, he chose to circle around the boss first and observe its current moveset.
Seeing Ichin enter the fight, Eriri didn't immediately start another attempt herself. Instead, she set down her controller and watched his screen.
"I seriously don't get why you couldn't just add shields."
Hearing Eriri's complaint, Ichin controlled his character to maintain distance from Gascoigne while replying, "If we added shields, then it'd just become Dark Souls again, wouldn't it? The whole point of designing firearms for the off-hand was to make players change the combat habits they developed in Dark Souls. Instead of defensive counterattacks, the game encourages aggression. Even if you get hit, it's fine, right? That's why this health recovery mechanic exists."
As he spoke, Ichin intentionally let his character get hit once, instantly losing half a health bar.
Instead of retreating, he sidestepped toward Father Gascoigne and quickly landed two attacks with the Saw Cleaver before backing away again. Part of the lost HP immediately recovered.
This was one of Bloodborne's unique mechanics. After taking damage, a portion of the lost health remained as recoverable HP. If the player retaliated quickly enough, they could regain that portion of health.
Watching Ichin's gameplay, Eriri frowned and said, "I know all that already, okay? But I'm too used to using shields in Dark Souls. You suddenly expect me to change my habits and it's seriously difficult. And the dodge step movement feels way too fast. I'm not used to it."
"That's normal. You'll get used to it after playing more. Besides, we're testing bosses right now, which is completely different from a normal playthrough. If you start from the beginning, there'll be plenty of regular enemies to help you adapt to the game's new mechanics."
As he spoke, Ichin continuously searched for openings in Gascoigne's attacks to sneak in hits, eventually pushing the boss into phase two, Father Gascoigne's werewolf form.
In phase two, Gascoigne became far more aggressive, with even higher attack power and speed.
At this point, even Ichin, despite fighting the boss for the first time, started feeling pressured. Bloodborne really was very different from Dark Souls, not just in combat logic, but also in player defense.
Dark Souls had light, medium, and heavy armor types, but in Bloodborne, the defensive differences between armor sets were relatively small. Unless players invested heavily into HP, bosses could usually kill them in around three hits.
Ichin was no exception. After nearly three minutes of intense fighting, with Gascoigne's HP reduced to just a sliver, he got slapped to death by the boss.
"Ah, close enough. I should clear it next attempt."
Setting down the controller and stretching lazily, Ichin smiled and said, "The pressure during phase two feels really good. But some of the boss's attacks are a little too fast. Let's adjust that slightly. A few moves could stand to be slowed down a bit."
Narumi Tsubame, who was standing beside him, nodded and wrote it down in her notebook.
After that, Ichin immediately started another test run. Meanwhile, after learning a few tricks from watching him, Eriri also began another attempt herself.
On Eriri's other side, Gokou Ruri and Nene were fighting Darkbeast Paarl instead, which meant Eriri couldn't even learn from them and had to figure things out on her own.
Just like Ichin had predicted himself, he defeated Father Gascoigne on his second attempt and moved on to testing the second boss.
As for Eriri, after three more attempts, she finally managed to defeat Father Gascoigne too and, like Ichin, proceeded to the second boss.
Meanwhile, Nene and Ruri almost simultaneously defeated Darkbeast Paarl and switched with Ichin and Eriri to begin testing Father Gascoigne instead.
The four of them continued testing for more than forty minutes before finally all defeating both bosses.
After sharing their thoughts and feedback regarding the boss battles, they gave up their seats so other interested staff members could continue testing.
Leaving the testing room, Eriri stretched lazily and said, "It really feels completely different from Dark Souls. The pressure during combat is intense!"
Gokou Ruri nodded in agreement. "I actually prefer this kind of combat more. It feels much more thrilling. The new mechanics balance risk and reward really well too. If you master gun parries properly, you can pull off amazing plays."
Nene smiled brightly. "I seriously can't wait for the game to be finished. And it's even based on Cthulhu Mythos themes. Ever since this project started, I've looked into a lot of Cthulhu-related stuff myself. It's actually really interesting!"
Eriri looked at Nene with a shocked expression. "Your tastes are that hardcore?!"
"What? This is part of our project research, obviously I should learn about it!" Nene calmly replied. "Besides, it's just Cthulhu stuff, isn't it? I'm not even scared of horror movies anymore. Why would I be scared of a little Cthulhu content?"
Compared to her petite appearance, Nene's courage was surprisingly massive. Besides building tolerance through horror movies, Umiko had also frequently taken her to play survival shooting games, which further strengthened her nerves.
"Uh… fine, you win."
When it came to things like this, Eriri definitely didn't dare compete with Nene. She genuinely couldn't handle horror movies at all.
And although she really liked Bloodborne, many of the monsters in the game still frightened her a little. She honestly wasn't sure whether she'd even have the confidence to finish the game herself once development was complete.
Looking at the three girls, Ichin said, "Actually, the bosses are fine. The overall game isn't really horror-focused either. But there are still a few regular enemies that haven't been finished yet, and honestly… even I think they're disgusting."
Remembering the giant pig monster with more than a dozen eyeballs on its face, along with the brain suckers and similar creatures, Ichin's expression became complicated.
Once those things were added into the game, they wouldn't just disgust the players. They'd disgust the developers too.
Seeing Ichin's expression, Eriri and the others exchanged glances, unsure whether they should even ask anymore.
Eriri waved her hand and said, "Forget it. We'll probably start designing them next week anyway, so whether you want to know or not, you'll find out eventually. Better prepare yourselves mentally. Alright, testing's over, so let's get back to work. I need to go finish my own tasks too."
Watching Ichin head toward the programming team, Gokou Ruri pursed her lips slightly and muttered, "I suddenly don't think I want to know anymore."
"Mhm, same here."
Eriri nodded before turning toward Nene. "Don't tell me you still want to know?"
"Hehe, a little. I'm going to go ask right now!"
After saying that, she ran toward Ichin under the watchful gazes of Eriri and Ruri.
...
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